Under the flag
by canyousmellchips
Summary: Laura gets lost in a pride parade and a lonely Carmilla keeps her company. First meeting in a pride parade AU.


**T** his was the third year Laura would be going to the pride parade. She loved how the city would be all full of rainbow colors everywhere. Girls would be kissing other girls, holding hands, in the mix of all the happiness and pop music blasting from the pride floats.

But this year was different. This was the first time she was going by herself with her college friends. Her father had sent Laura a thousand messages asking her to be careful, to not accept drinks from strangers and asked her if she remembered to pack a bottle of bear spray in her bag.

Laura thought he was being worried mostly because he wasn't used to his little girl going to public places full of strangers without him. They had always done everything together after her mom died. And three years ago when Laura came out, she got scared things would change when he started crying. But then a few days later he told her they were going to pride together to celebrate. She was the one who decided it was time for her to start doing things on her own now that she has started her adult life.

So there she was in another pride, but now with her friends in the middle of a crowd, wearing a shirt that said "I like girls in a gay way" under a rainbow coat and gaining lots of smiles from cute girls all around. LaFontaine found a shirt last week that said "I'm not gay but my girlfriend is", which made Perry turn into a deep shade of red every time she looked at them.

At some point during the afternoon, a giant rainbow flag was passing close by, with many people dancing under it. It was so big it engulfed almost the entirety of the street they were in.

"We need to go there!" Laura exclaimed and ran in the direction of the flag, ignoring the shouts from her friends to wait for them.

Laura got excited with the amount of people dancing and laughing around her and it took a few minutes for her to notice that she got separated from LaFontaine and Perry in the crowd. Looking around she couldn't find any redheads and started to panic a little bit.

"Ok, don't freak out. Let's just get out of here." Laura thought to herself while she tried to get out of the mass but kept getting pushed back under the flag.

Suddenly a warm hand pulled her in another direction and she found herself out from under the flag. When she turned around, Laura opened her mouth in awe at the sight of the beautiful girl who helped her. Leather pants combined with combat boots on a beautiful raven haired girl who was smiling at her like she wasn't sure if she wanted to eat Laura or kiss her. Which sounded very intimidating after Laura stopped drooling about her perfect jaw line. The strange girl sure looked out of place in all her black clothes, contrasting with all the colors around them.

"You looked like you needed some help," said the girl with a bit uncertainty, with her dark hair falling in front of her eyes.

"Oh, thank you! I was just trying to find my friends. I guess I got too excited and got lost in the middle of the crowd and now they are probably worried about me… And, oh my God, I will so have to lie to my dad about today…" Laura stopped talking at the sound of the other girl laughing at her.

"Let's see if I can help you find your friends, rainbow riding hood."

Laura was going to protest about the joke the girl made about her rainbow coat (it was a gift from her dad!) but stopped at the feeling of their hands interlocking again. The raven-haired girl started to walk around with her and she felt lucky to have a pretty girl around, and was not really that worried about finding her friends at the moment. But still, she described how LaFontaine and Perry looked like and they stayed like that, hand in hand, trying to find the couple of redheads in the middle of the giant crowd.

"Maybe you should try to call them, cupcake."

"Call me Laura, please." She didn't like it when people called her any type of cute things; it made her feel young and naïve. Which she wasn't, at all. But the girl's low voice made everything sound amazing.

"I'm Carmilla."

That was a pretty name, and Laura thought it fitted her well. She got her phone out of her the pocket of her jeans and tried to call Perry but there seemed to be no signal where they were.

"There is no reception here. This can't be happening."

Carmilla and Laura kept searching for her friends but the parade passed through them and they were still lost somehow. After the music stopped they finally decided to just sit together on a bench, a short distance away from the crowd to rest. Both were tired of walking for the last half hour without any signs of her friends.

An awkward silence fell between them; just the constant chatter of the few people who were still around could be heard. Laura observed the drunken people, now dancing close to a pole and decided to stop staring when they started to try to do pole dance in the middle of the street. When she turned back to Carmilla, she noticed how the girl was admiring her with a small smirk. That made something warm spread in Laura's lower stomach.

"So… Is this your first pride?" She tried to make small talk.

"Can you tell?"

"The black clothes and being alone in a pride parade is a bit of a give."

Carmilla stared at the ground; there was something sad in this girl. She looked lonely in a place that was full of happy people celebrating their identities. Laura wanted to somehow make her smile again.

"My mom isn't okay with me being out. And I may have said some things she didn't like. So this is me trying to piss her off by doing something she wouldn't approve. Like I always do." Carmilla said in a small voice, shrugging.

"Worried you aren't living up to expectations?" Laura asked while one of her shoulders brushed Carmilla's.

A smile started to form at the corner of Carmilla's mouth. It was just a small glimpse but it was a start for Laura.

"I'm sorry. If you want to talk about it… Only child of a massively overprotective dad right here to listen."

Carmilla's smile grew more and this seemed like a genuine one. Laura thought it looked nice on her and maybe being lost wasn't so bad if this was the company she could have.

A buzz coming from Laura's hands made her jump and she saw a new message from LaF:

"Turn around, crushes on punk ladies."

Laura looked at her other side and there was LaFontaine, with a look that said "nice catch" all over their face. Perry seemed a bit angry, but it was probably just her being worried every time one of them would do something that she didn't approve of. It took only a few months of college life to understand that about her new friends.

"Looks like your friends found us anyway." Was that disappointment in Carmilla's voice?

"Yeah… I should… Probably go. Just reassure them that I'm ok."

"It's ok, cupcake. I'll see you around." That sure sounded like disappointment, Laura was more certain now.

"Wait!" Carmilla was already starting to get up when Laura made her stop. "Thank you for today… I didn't mind that much getting lost with you."

Carmilla's hand pushed a lock of brown hair behind Laura's ear and her breath stopped for a second.

"It was my pleasure, creampuff. Thank you for the distraction. I really needed this."

"Maybe we should… Continue talking another day? I mean if you'd like that, of course. I'm probably just jumping ahead and assuming things and…"

While Laura kept rambling, Carmilla took her phone from the girl's hands and typed something in it before giving it back to her.

"I think I'd like that very much. That's my phone number. Give me a call."

"Oh, cool. Cool…. I… I need to go now. Bye." Laura gave a small peck in Carmilla's cheek and ran to her friends.

"Only you could flirt with a vampire girl in a pride parade, Laura." Said LaFontaine and Laura pushed their shoulders, laughing.

When Laura looked behind them one last time to try and wave at Carmilla the girl was already not there anymore. That was… weird. But at least she got her number, Laura thought to herself with a giggle escaping from her mouth. Not bad at all for her first grown up pride parade.

* * *

This was inspired by Natasha's idea of Hollstein going on a date during a protest. For some reason my mind went "wait, it would be even more funny if they met in a pride parade and Laura got lost". I told Doris about my idea and, as always, she loved it and edited for me. It's my first time writing an AU so we'll see if I can really work with that!


End file.
